Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Stop me if you have heard this before, but the New York
Rangers are changing their lines.The Rangers
are obviously in need of something to change when their offense has managed to
score a mere 13 goals in nine games this month and so here comes the newest
incarnation to try and reboot the offense.According to Andrew Gross of Ranger
Rants this is what it looked like:

For me these lines are the one line that worked on Sunday
Wolski, Stepan and Zuccarello and throw the rest in a blender type moves.The chemistry with Stepan and Zuccarello
frees them up to play with most other wingers and be effective, but putting a
skill guy like Wolski gives them three skill players to create offense.The only thing you worry about with this line
is that they can be banged around by bigger lines and defensive groups.Wolski is a big body but not known for a
physical game and Stepan and Zuccarello while willing to hit and take hits are
not exactly giants out there.

Fedotenko and Anisimov have both worked with Gaborik before
this season to varying degrees of success.The reason that Fedotenko was taken away from Gaborik back in December
after a six game stretch together was to reunite him with Boyle and Prust on
the Rangers most consistent line this year.Personally I do not like splitting up the consistent line in hopes of
finding a spark for Gaborik, but that is what the Rangers keep doing.

Dubinsky playing with Boyle and Prust is an interesting
combination that should certainly play phenomenal defensive hockey against the
top opposition lines, but will they work well together offensively?The three play similar styles in that they
can grind, and Dubinsky’s skill might create more chances for his linemates and
if that happens it will be successful.Playing with defensively responsible players might also free Dubinsky up
to be more aggressive offensively.It is
either that or playing with “checking line” type players will drain even more offensive
instincts out of Dubinsky and the leading scorer on the team will slump.Also have to be concerned with the number of
minutes these three are going to play though as all will kill penalties, likely
match the top line at even strength and at least Dubinsky will get power play
work as well.

As for the fourth line it is what it will be though
Totorella’s open praise of Kris Newbury today means that Dale Weise is likely
headed back to the Whale after tomorrow so that he can play on Friday for
Connecticut.There is no reason to keep
Weise here if he is going to be a scratch.

There were also some alterations made to the defensive
pairings today which is a change from the recent past.

Marc Staal – Dan Girardi

Matt Gilroy – Michael Sauer

Ryan McDonagh – Steve Eminger

I like reuniting Gilroy and Sauer as Eminger’s play has
slipped and Gilroy has earned the promotion.

In an effort to fix the power play they will once again make changes this time adding a fourth forward on the point with Gaborik, Wolski and Zuccarello the likely candidates. I think all three have potential there, but Wolski strikes me as the most natural fit there. Gaborik really needs to play a harder game if he is going to be successful and dancing around the point does not help him do that. Zuccarello has the vision and skill to man the point, but is very effective down low and behind the net so having him at the point takes that away. Wolski on the other hand does not really like a physical game, has a good shot and can pass the puck which all fits the mode of a point man.

In terms of the lines overall I expect they will not last
that long and have some of my own ideas on how I would run them, but that is
not important at the moment.The reality
is that the offense and more importantly the line changes will not stop until
Gaborik starts scoring.

The questions and scrutiny surrounding Marian Gaborik
were bound to come when the first pronounced slump for the Rangers’ offense met
a bump in the road for the team’s record.
That point has come and from all the articles talking about how it was
just a bump in the road it has become like he will never score another goal as
long as he lives. To set the record straight
Marian Gaborik will score again and he will score many more goals in his
career. Beyond those there are the
articles that seek to explain Gaborik’s struggles in the realm of all these
other snipers who are having down seasons: Ovechkin, Semin, Kane,
Kovalchuk. While talking about the
slumps those guys are in can ease some of the panic over Gaborik and his
struggles, I frankly do not care if those guys ever score again as they do not
wear a Blueshirt sweater.

The fact that the team only has 13 goals this month or
that the team lead is two (Zuccarello, Wolski) shows that it is not just
Gaborik who cannot bury the puck in the ocean right now, but the others do not
have the combination of his skill, salary and expectations to go with them. Now moving beyond all those parts of it
Gaborik is sitting on an eight game drought since his last goal and fair or
unfair with the entire offense struggling the expectations make Gaborik the
first target for the media to turn to.
On Sunday he became the target for his coach as well with his benching
for much of the second and third periods against the rival Flyers.

When asked about the benching Gaborik responded with surprise
according to Andrew Gross of Ranger
Rants,

“Yeah,” Gaborik said. “Obviously I haven’t produced
much lately. Obviously, in these types of games, it’s a big game. I’m not
giving up, I’ve just got to work harder, just try to get out of it, that’s the
bottom line. Confidence is a very big part. The last few games, I felt good and
we created chances. I think things were happening but it was not going in. It
surprised me tonight to get benched. It’s the coach’s decision, that’s the
bottom line. I have to produce and help this team win games.”

So what exactly is wrong with Marian Gaborik? Is he still hurt? Are
Vinny Prospal and Erik Christensen really that important to Gaborik production? How will Gaborik respond to the benching?

Nobody has the real answer to the first question or
they would have fixed it by now, but there is definitely a confidence issue at
play by this point. If Gaborik is hurt
my money is on his shoulder more than the groin which has been his historical
nemesis. When he needs to turn it on
Gaborik seems to have the ability to accelerate and hit top gear at least in
straight lines. What you do not see is
Gaborik coming off the wall and attacking the net to go to the dirty areas
where he scored many of his “vulture” goals last year just being around when
pucks would squirt free. For me that is about
the shoulder and being afraid of contact to reinjure it and would also explain
why his wrist shot does not seem to have the same snap to it this year. If he is still hurt then he needs to sit and get healthy because while I commend him for trying to play through it he is not helping the team in either the short or long term; especially if part of the reason is so he does not have to hear about being fragile.

I keep hearing about how
Gaborik does not have Prospal, Christensen is hurt and there is no number one
center on the team. With last night’s
news that Prospal
does not seem optimistic about a return, Christensen possibly being the
odd-man out of the lineup with recent moves and the fact Brad Richards is not
coming this year all of those things need to go away.

In terms of his response to the benching the quotation
above has me worried about that because there does seem to be an aura of
self-pity in it and that worries me both from a lack of realization in what he
is not doing this year to get those goals and the confidence issue. As bad as it sounds you want him to be angry
about being benched; you want him to tell them he knows he is going to get out
of it. A little more bravado and swagger
for Gaborik would not be a bad thing right now. How he responds will tell us everything we need to know about Marian Gaborik as a long term answer for this team. Fair or unfair Gaborik is the highest paid
player on this team and he makes that money to score so until he does this
story will not go away and the Rangers hopes of doing something this year will
only decrease the longer he struggles.

If anyone comes up with a solution for the problem or finds Gaborik's offense give John Tortorella a call.

Watching a coach go crazy on the bench is always an entertaining event at a hockey game and this one was no different. Kevin Colley, head coach of the ECHL's Utah Grizzlies lost his mind at the end of his team's Saturday night in a game against the Stockton Thunder.

Favorite parts in the video were:

Equipment guy starts picking up sticks to prevent coach from throwing any more on the ice

Where the announcers tell you that the guy going crazy actually is the director of hockey operations for the team as well as the coach.

Can you imagine being the owner of that team and someone's asks you about the insanity of this move and you have to tell them that you put that guy in charge of making the decisions on who is on the team as well?

After a long weekend for the New York Rangers I wanted to
start the regular week off on a positive note so instead of focusing on Gabby
and his struggles I looked at what I saw as the highlight of the weekend; the
emergence of Derek
Stepan and Mats Zuccarello as a pair.
These two Rangers rookies have both shown great skill, poise and
maturity in their short NHL careers, but they took it to another level this
weekend when in both games they combined to lead the team charges back after
subpar efforts early in both games. The
Rangers and their fans had high hopes for both of these young players when they
signed their respective contracts this past summer, but I do not think anyone
honestly envisioned either or both of them being this integral to the Rangers
as they are right now this soon. In the
article I took a look at what makes them special individual and apparently as a
pair, along with what it means for the Rangers this season and in the future.

In team news that is certainly not officially Vinny
Prospal spoke at an event for season ticket holders about his future and to
say he was not optimistic would be an understatement. I took a look at the reports out of the event
and whether the Rangers have already accounted for Prospal’s feelings with
their moves.

With all the “controversy” that surrounded Sean
Avery breaking the code and fighting Carle last night it was lost for the
most part that Hartnell
and Briere punched Brandon Prust from the bench towards the end of the game
Sunday night. The idea was that this
move was a combination of Prust hitting Timmonen too hard and payback for Avery
taking liberties on Carle. Watch the video and see what happened, but the most
comical part of the whole scenario was Flyers fans talking about Prust was
afraid to fight Richards on the play. In
the end only Briere was fined a whopping one thousand dollars just like what
Dubinsky got for the Oilers incident where he got involved from the bench.